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Cyclist bemoans police reporting system as furious driver who shouted abuse and got out car to confront him "gets a talking to"

"A victim of a crime shouldn't have to know the system [...] if you think this is about cyclists vs motorists, it isn't. It's about the basic ability for laws and norms to be upheld"...

A cyclist in London has raised concerns about the way footage of incidents on the road can be reported, using his own case as an example of how reports can fall through the cracks as police forces "follow procedure" and are "drowning under cases".

The cyclist behind the Dylillama Twitter account originally shared footage of an incident in Bromley, south east London, on social media last month — and later reported it to the police — after an objection to a close pass led to a motorist driving alongside him for an uncomfortable length of time before accelerating ahead to get out of his vehicle further up the road to wait for the rider.

The whole incident is seen in the footage below, the driver objecting to his "too close, mate" call as they overtook, prompting him to brake and exchange words with the cyclist. "Stay away from me, piss off, move on," the rider can be heard saying, repeatedly asking the driver to continue on their way.

When the driver eventually does it is only to wait in a side road further along the route, getting out of his car and moving into the road as the cyclist approaches. While the rider tells him to "calm down", the man can be heard saying: "Come on, you prick".

When the rider came to report the footage, "the police online reporting tool instructions led me to report it as an assault when it would have been better to report as solely a traffic issue".

"That itself is insane — want to assault someone? Do it in a car," he said. "A victim of a crime shouldn't have to know the system."

The problem came as the roads policing team "stopped investigating while the police investigated the assault", meaning that while this happened "14 days went by, more actually".

"This meant the statutory deadline for the traffic offences expired," he continued. "The police concluded that the rest of the conduct did not warrant charging or prosecution. So the driver will get a talking to and remain 'on the system'."

> Here's what to do if you capture a near miss, close pass or collision on camera while cycling

When we contacted the Metropolitan Police about the story we were told: "Police were contacted on 26 August by a man reported an incident where a driver had verbally threatened him while he was cycling on Farnborough Hill, Bromley.

"Officers investigated the incident, including viewing footage provided by the cyclist, to establish if any offences in relation to the threatening behaviour aspect could be identified. They could not and the complainant was informed.

"While there will be no further action at this time, the registered owner of the car will be contacted by police and advised about his conduct."

The cyclist called it a "pretty poor outcome" but added he has "absolutely no issue" with the officers involved, saying "they did their best with what they had" and instead blamed the whole reporting process as "a bit of a farce".

He continued: "I don't blame any of the individual officers involved. The roads unit was following procedure. The police officer I spoke to was drowning under cases and got to mine as soon as he could. The charging decision has to consider both chance of conviction and the capacity of the courts system to deal with something like this, in and amongst thousands of other back-logged cases.

"I am okay. I can handle myself, de-escalate a situation and carry on my way. I love riding enough that this won't impact me. But I shouldn't be the standard — think about the precedent this sets for actually vulnerable riders and what it does for encouraging cycling.

"Budgets throughout the whole of the system are in crisis, from on the street policing, to back office consideration of offences, through to the ability to prosecute in court or provide restorative justice outside the courts. It's all broken.

> Should dealing with third-party camera reports from cyclists be outsourced? Close pass op pioneer Mark Hodson on the road.cc Podcast

"If you think this is about cyclists vs motorists it isn't. It's about the basic ability for laws and norms to be upheld. I hope the man in the video gets help. I am a normal person, a partner, a father, a friend, who happens to ride a bike. For that kind of rage to exist in someone for so little reason is beyond comprehension. I hope the the chat with the police gives him reflection and peace."

This tale is nothing new either. Through our Near Miss of the Day series, our campaign making a point about driving standards and the lack of consideration for vulnerable road users on UK roads, we have reported on numerous instances where footage has gone unpunished due to issues.

Last November, Thames Valley Police apologised to a road.cc reader for not requesting clearer footage sooner, meaning it was too late to prosecute a close pass driver.

"To pursue allegations of careless/inconsiderate driving, we are required by law to send a written Notice of Intended Prosecution (NoIP) to the registered keeper of the vehicle within 14 days of the incident," the force told us.

"In this case, we did not initially have sufficiently clear enough evidence to satisfy stage one. A request was made for clearer footage on 2 September and this was provided on the same day. However, as the time limit for prosecution had expired, we were unable to pursue a prosecution or request that the offending driver attend a driver education course on this occasion.

"Had the request for clearer footage been done sooner, there is a possibility we could have considered sending the driver on an educational course. For this, we apologise."

While back in June, a Staffordshire cyclist told us of a police email mix-up which allowed a driver to get away without punishment for squeezing him off the road on a country lane, again the 14-day window expiring by the time it was resolved.

Near Miss of the Day 866 (credit: Rob Edwards)

Dan is the road.cc news editor and has spent the past four years writing stories and features, as well as (hopefully) keeping you entertained on the live blog. Having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for the Non-League Paper, Dan joined road.cc in 2020. Come the weekend you'll find him labouring up a hill, probably with a mouth full of jelly babies, or making a bonk-induced trip to a south of England petrol station... in search of more jelly babies.

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44 comments

Avatar
Fignon's ghost | 9 months ago
11 likes

IMO. There is currently a heightened state of disrespect by motorists where cyclists are concerned.
Politicians and police are muddying the waters. Making vulnerable road users appear to be troublemakers. Do they really believe cyclists are risking their lives, simply to piss off unhinged motorists?!?

Much more needs be done to protect vulnerable road users.

I've recently noticed a definite increase in close passing and unfounded gesticulation and bad language.

THIS IDIOT driver is in neeed of a SLAP. Fuck SNAP. Hopefully, he'll get his comeuppance soon. It's inevitable. What a terwat.

Avatar
squidgy replied to Fignon's ghost | 9 months ago
3 likes

I'm sure I've seen this vehicle on my rounds.
Maybe giving the wrong location didn't help as this is on Croydon Road, and Farnborough Hill is some distance away

Avatar
Fignon's ghost replied to squidgy | 9 months ago
2 likes

The driver may have learning difficulties. Perhaps there's more to it.
If you look at the moment the cyclist is accosted by the driver (on foot in the middle of the lane/road). You'll see the silver car also has to break and swerve.

And the police do nothing!?!

IMO. An assessment needs to take place as to whether further assistance is required. The driver may need mental health assistance.

Avatar
Rendel Harris | 9 months ago
13 likes

Imagine this sort of practice being used elsewhere in the criminal justice system, "Yes okay, they stabbed you and then went and set fire to your house, but we can only prosecute one and you'll have to take your chances because if we can't prove the first one we investigate we won't bother with the other." At the very least there should be a mechanism built into the statutory time limit for reporting that allows for a pause so that the complaint can be reactivated once the investigation into the more serious offence has been completed.

Avatar
hawkinspeter replied to Rendel Harris | 9 months ago
19 likes
Rendel Harris wrote:

Imagine this sort of practice being used elsewhere in the criminal justice system, "Yes okay, they stabbed you and then went and set fire to your house, but we can only prosecute one and you'll have to take your chances because if we can't prove the first one we investigate we won't bother with the other." At the very least there should be a mechanism built into the statutory time limit for reporting that allows for a pause so that the complaint can be reactivated once the investigation into the more serious offence has been completed.

Or "you shouted whilst they were stabbing you, so we're not going to prosecute as you were inciting them"

Avatar
Sriracha replied to Rendel Harris | 9 months ago
2 likes

Why do traffic offences benefit from such a generous (to the offender) 'statute of limitations'?

Avatar
hawkinspeter replied to Sriracha | 9 months ago
2 likes
Sriracha wrote:

Why do traffic offences benefit from such a generous (to the offender) 'statute of limitations'?

Because the motor/oil lobby owns the law makers

Avatar
eburtthebike | 9 months ago
18 likes

"Budgets throughout the whole of the system are in crisis, from on the street policing, to back office consideration of offences, through to the ability to prosecute in court or provide restorative justice outside the courts. It's all broken."

13 years of austerity coming home to roost.  I wonder how they'll blame labour.

Driver is almost pure gammon, 98% at least.

Avatar
HoarseMann | 9 months ago
12 likes

This task needs taking off the police. A new civil body (or widening the remit of the DVSA) could handle moving traffic offences much more efficiently than the police.

Fines should be set at a level where the whole enforcement operation can be run at a profit, with those profits being invested in road safety schemes.

If private parking companies can make it financially viable to go after drivers who don't follow parking rules, then it's surely possible to do the same for moving traffic offences.

Avatar
hawkinspeter replied to HoarseMann | 9 months ago
10 likes
HoarseMann wrote:

This task needs taking off the police. A new civil body (or widening the remit of the DVSA) could handle moving traffic offences much more efficiently than the police.

Fines should be set at a level where the whole enforcement operation can be run at a profit, with those profits being invested in road safety schemes.

If private parking companies can make it financially viable to go after drivers who don't follow parking rules, then it's surely possible to do the same for moving traffic offences.

I think it should remain under control of the police as criminality is often linked. If they crack down on illegal drivers, they're bound to find that the culprits are also involved in other criminality, so it makes sense to keep the police involved.

It hink we should give them enough money to do their jobs properly and train/sack those officers that don't seem to understand traffic law when it comes to examining cam footage.

Avatar
mitsky replied to hawkinspeter | 9 months ago
12 likes

I submitted a complaint to the Met police about how one of their staff (that deals with video evidence reports of bad driving) had an unusually high rate of no further action compared to others on his team.

I queried if his caseload could be auditted to see if he was simply closing cases with no action, or a warning at best, so that his workload/rate looked good.

He has subsequently moved roles, but I can't be sure if it was because of my complaint.

Avatar
RicCycleCoach replied to hawkinspeter | 9 months ago
6 likes

You could have the police looking at these sorts of things and have the money ploughed back into keeping those staff operational and trained really well. My local force has civilians do this, who don't do it very well. The police are aware the job isn't done well by these civilians, because they're not paid sufficiently (either for training or to care, this part wasn't well explained to me). But that's what they told me. 

FWIW, i've had some absolute kn0bshite try to run into me (on purpose) and attempt to ram me from behind (he almost hit pedestrians as well). It went forward as an assault, they failed to contact the witnesses quickly enough (and they moved to a different area) and couldn't be bothered to visit them then couldn't process it as a traffic offence because of the NIP/14 days (even tho i told them on day 1 they'd need a NIP). you can't make this shit up. Meanwhile the same driver has close passed me several times (and by close pass i don't mean the usual 0.5m away, but actually hit me with his door mirror) on several occasions. However, it's not just cyclists he dislikes (I've caught him ramming a car - he's a van driver) and still i see him driving around. 

Avatar
HoarseMann replied to hawkinspeter | 9 months ago
2 likes
hawkinspeter wrote:

I think it should remain under control of the police as criminality is often linked.

The police could still bring their own prosecutions and have access to the associated intelligence from camera footage (ANPR etc).

The problem with public submitted / CCTV camera driving complaints staying with the police, is they've got other priorities, so funding will always be a challenge.

It's also a national problem, which lends itself better to a single IT solution and legal process, rather than the sporadic police force specific solutions we have at the moment.

Avatar
mitsky replied to HoarseMann | 9 months ago
11 likes

Maybe put it under the DVLA.

At the end of the day, if a driver is found to have operated the vehicle in a way that would fail the driving test, they should lose their licence...

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